It has been speculated that the pen name is from the main character of Ernest Hemingway's novel For Whom the Bell Tolls, but Robert Jordan has since clarified on his blog [1] that his pen names have all been chosen from three lists of names using his real initials, and that one of his pen names managed to contain all three of his initials in both the first name and the surname.

Although some bibliographies list it, Conan: King of Thieves does not exist. It was the original title of the second Conan movie. Robert Jordan had already been hired to do the novelization and Tor had already applied for an ISBN when the title was changed to Conan the Destroyer. [2]